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Here Thar Be Monsters!

From the other side of the argument to the other side of the planet, read in over 149 countries and 17 languages. We bring you news and opinion with an IndoTex® flavor. Be sure to check out Radio Far Side. Send thoughts and comments to luap.jkt at gmail,and tell all your friends. Sampai jumpa, y'all.

29.9.13

In my previous two posts, I laid out the arguments. I tried, as best I could, to present both sides, though frankly I am solidly on the 'against' side at this time. I say 'at this time' because, like any rational being, I am open to new evidence. I challenge anyone with a good argument to present their facts in favor of GMOs and I guarantee I will publish it here alongside my own.

That said, I promised to present a model in this essay for a global debate on GMOs. I think I have made a superficial case for the necessity of such debate, now I want to outline a course of action that I hope to mobilize a great number of people to take. Through the magic of the internet, my LinkedIn network alone connects to three million people. This blog has 300-400 unique readers per day, and by six degrees of separation, I should be able to reach well over three million people, if each of us will forward a link to just three more people.

Buyer beware: I am not promoting myself. I am promoting an idea and (hopefully) functioning as a seed or kernel to sprout that idea into action.

In recent years, the idea of 'crowd funding' has grown very quickly. Whether it's the Mars One project or films such as Iron Sky, the idea of appealing to large internet audiences for support is a valid business model. So, with that said, here's the model:

The UN is a global governance body, for better or worse. It is, therefore, susceptible to mass opinion, whether it likes that idea or not. It has proven that it is controllable by corporate interests in that it has promoted global warming, feminism and social services as business models at the behest of business interests.

We also know that the UN does have some teeth. Those who go against the UN are subject to public scorn, be they the United States or various interests such as Greenpeace, et al. The UN can throw some weight around, and with enough pressure from any given source, it can be steered.

Furthermore, the corporations letting GMOs into the wild, such as Monsanto and DuPont, are multi-nationals that can easily slip from one jurisdiction to another to avoid sanctions and other controls. Likewise, their products release pollen, which does not recognize fences or national boundaries, thus even if one country bans GMOs (as many have), crops in neighboring nations can cross-pollinate with natural species.

The only way to address these issues, and things like clear and honest labeling, is to go to the top - the UN. Many will not like this idea and say that it empowers the UN over national sovereignty, and they have a good point, but the issue is such that there is little other choice in addition to a global boycott, which we must also address.

I propose that people start swamping the UN with email and letters to force a global conference, even a court, to hear the issues. This court should have three judges, one an expert in Western law, one an expert in Eastern law, and one specialized in international law. There should be a jury of twelve composed of six recognized experts who agree with GMO technology, and six who are openly and vocally opposed to it. There should be a period to allow people around the world to file sworn affidavits detailing their experiences with GMOs, as well as those from acknowledged experts in the field - pro and con. The proceedings should be webcast so that all humans can participate in this crucial debate.

Most importantly, the open dissemination of GMO products must have a moratorium imposed on them for at least 25 years. There are far too many unknowns in this technology. The issue of 'junk DNA' alone demands that the use of GMO tech be stopped until such major questions are answered. We just don't know what huge chunks of DNA do, nor do we know what can happen if we start mixing and matching bits of DNA from different species, or creating new genes that could enter our DNA permanently with unknown results.

The potential long-term problems are just too great to ignore. We know that every technology has its drawbacks, and we've already caused major long-term damage to our habitats with accidents like Fukushima. We are challenging Fate by stepping into realms where we just don't know enough to go, and we risk the entire human race, if not the entire biosphere, in doing so.

Start writing the UN General Secretary and your national delegation. Swamp them with email and letters until they can no longer ignore or dismiss this issue. Demand open hearings, such as the one I outlined above, and demand a stop to open dissemination until the outstanding issues can be resolved. If your nation is not yet recognized, such as Palestine or Texas, then you can address your concerns to UNPO. Also, contact the World Court, since GMO technology is potentially a Crime Against Humanity, and possibly even Genocide - two issues for which the court exists to address. Finally, contact your local and national representatives and demand that they support a moratorium on GMO tech and support a global debate on the issue.

GMOs are an emergency issue. We don't know what we are doing to our long-term survivability and we know that GMOs in the wild agressively mix with other natural species and transfer genetic material to them. Monsanto has proved this in courts of law by suing farmers whose crops were accidentally pollinated by neighboring GMO crops.

We also know that GMO crops do NOT meet all the criteria for patents, and any patents already issued should be revoked, thus removing the profit motive. Companies who break any moratorium should be fined an amount equal to one year's revenues (not profits but revenues). Give the law real teeth and make infractions really hurt in the only way one can with corporations. This money can be put towards helping farmers who have been damaged by GMO crops.

If everyone who reads this gets the contact links to just three other like-minded folks, it would reach millions in a matter of days. We have readers from 98 countries on a regular basis. Let's put that kind of power to work for the benefit of our species. It won't take you more than ten minutes of your entire life to get this issue moving. If you are under 30 years old and/or don't yet have children, then the imperative is even greater to address GMOs now, before the problem becomes a crisis.

Don't forget to contact your local and national media, while you're at it. Make them sensitive to the issue so they will look for any stirrings on the part of global bodies, and perhaps - just maybe - some will join us in bringing the problem to a head.

27.9.13

For too long, humans have sat by passively while corporate and government interests have run rough-shod over the rest of us. They have frequently created and instituted technologies and processes that were later found to have egregious effect on the world population as a whole. Examples? Pharmaceuticals, geo-engineering, nuclear power, and the list goes on. In each case, safer alternatives were suppressed because they weren't as profitable, or the technologies were put in place without a full debate by all parties on the benefits and detriments of the technologies, usually with a profit motive involved.

We are currently being damaged as a whole by things like Fukushima, strange diseases and side-effects from pharma, massive natural disasters attributable, as least in part, to modification of the environment (geo-engineering), not to mention unbridled profiteering causing economic hardship worldwide.

We now stand on the verge of instituting a technology that will have profound long-term effects on humanity and the very survival of our species. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are a very real and present danger to our survival as a race. We are quickly reaching the point where it will be possible to modify the human genome and have those modifications become a permanent part of our species, for better or worse, and it is the 'worse' part that concerns us most. The Law of Unintended Consequences states that whatever benefit we gain on the whole from GMOs will be offset by detrimental and possibly horrific consequences that will not be easily remedied (see Fukushima, Chernobyl, et al.).

Humanity has spent the past few hundred years making great strides in individual liberty and human rights. The creation of legally-owned beings for the purpose of hard or hazardous labor - a disposable race - would reverse all the achievements we have made as a species and lead to a cheapening of life on the whole. After all, if we can accept that a certain group of individuals is disposable, then it is a short jump to seeing the entire human race as such, or more likely the establishment of a genetic elite who could not be challenged since they hold the power of life and death with legal precedent and backup.

The moral and philosophical issues are even harder to debate. Some would take the point that only God owns an individual and is empowered to muck about with our genome. The counter-argument would be that if only God is empowered, then how is it that we mere mortals have discovered the technology? Without the ability to place God in the witness box, there is little weight to such arguments, and many would see them as archaic. The debate is millennia old and shows no signs of being resolved soon.

In fact, what makes humans free but our ability to kill anyone who challenges that freedom? Has not all of human history shown that those with gold and guns make the rules? Aren't morals and ethics just idealistic constructs backed up by appeal to a higher authority that no one can prove exists (assuming one is Aristotelian in outlook)? Especially in the post-Darwin era, might-makes-right has taken on a kind of natural imperative, especially in the age of Nietzsche and his ilk. If God is dead, then there is no teeth behind the claim of moral superiority on that side of the argument.

Iran's attempts to develop nuclear power have been used as an excuse to place the country and its people under threat of invasion and economic sanctions for the better part of 30 years now, though similar programs in other countries have gone unchallenged. Fukushima is rapidly poisoning our planet and the effects will be with us for thousands of years. The area around Chernobyl has been a wasteland for decades and likely will be for centuries to come. British dumping of radioactive waste in the North Sea has been poisoning that region for 40 years. And this is only one technology.

Internal combustion engines and petroleum fuels. Chemical waste from manufacturing. Fracking. Just read the list of side-effects on most pharmaceuticals to see that not everything is as peachy-keen as advertised. There is a quiet war building with super-bugs created by the profligate used of antibiotics, which were hailed just 60 short years ago as the redemption of mankind and the end of disease.

GMO technology has been foisted upon humanity with little or no debate as to the desirability and long-term effects of the processes. There has been no great public debates on the moral and ethical hazards. Problems and horror stories have been buried in the name of profit. Just one example is the Indonesian cocoa crop.

GMO tech promised to provide cocoa trees to Indonesia that would have larger canopies, produce more and better fruit, and increase the profits of the small farmers who used it. Instead, the trees have larger canopies at the expense of root development, so the trees literally fall out of the ground. Those that don't fail to provide the promised bonanza of higher yields. In the longer-term, Indonesia's cocoa crop, one of the largest in the world, has been damaged and many small farmers have been impoverished due to crop failure.

In other areas, Monsanto's Round-Up ready seeds promised the use of less poisons to kill pests and weeds. Instead, the resistance engineered into the crops have transferred to the pests and weeds, as well, causing greater use of highly toxic Round-Up and other poisons to maintain the same levels of efficacy pre-GMO.

Then there's the whole issue of ingesting GMO foods. There is mounting evidence that these foods cause horrific diseases and organ damage when eaten. These effects have been hidden by a complicit media hoping to protect advertising revenues, but the stories are getting out. In any event, it is safe to say that the corporate interests are hiding information that might harm their profits, and the anti-GMO side is likely guilty of hyperbole in some cases. Either way, the facts must be placed on the table and debated.

In the past, humanity as a whole did not have the ability to mount a global debate. It is only since the communications revolution and democratization of satellite and internet technology that the entire human population has had the ability to mount such an endeavor. Until now, corporate and government interests have had a free ride in protecting each other's revenue streams at the expense of the rest of us humans.

The time has arrived whereby humanity can mount a global debate and every human has the ability to join in. The nature of and threat from GMOs demands that we open this debate now and on a global scale. We have a global institution in the UN with the resources and teeth to bring all the parties to the table and enforce the results. We have the technology to invite all humans to participate in a way never before possible. And we have an issue that demands a global solution before it goes any further and becomes irreparable.

26.9.13

Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your time in hearing this case.

I represent the people of the world - natural human beings - and their generations yet to come, whose very existance hinges upon the outcome of thise case. Your decision will affect millions, if not billions of lives over the next several hundred years. This is not hyperbole, but a fact that I intend to prove during the course of this trial.

The facts of the case will be complex and subtle, and it will require deep reflection and understanding on your part to grasp what is at stake here. The argument will touch on both physics and metaphysics. It will delve into the very nature of what it is to be human, and who can and does own those things which make up our mental, physical and spiritual selves.

This case is styled Humanity vs. Biotech Companies, et al., for a reason. This is a class-action suit on the part of every single human being living and not yet born - the Plaintiffs - versus companies who seek to "improve" human beings or modify them for specific purposes, and thus patent and claim ownership of some or all of the human genome.

Some would call this "playing God" while others say that no individual or organization can own DNA or genes, and thus have no claim on the results of processing and modifying the genomes of living things. Yet, there is a long history, predating genetic research, that has established legal precedent for these claims of ownership.

Under Western patent law, a patent is granted if a process can not arise in nature - in other words requires humans to create it - it uses a documented and repeatable process, like Henry Ford's assembly line, and the product is unique and useful to others. In granting a patent, the law protects this process and its product as intellectual property for a certain amount of time, so that the inventor may profit from his labor.

Patents have already been granted and upheld for genetically modified lab animals, food crops and cloning. Thus, the law has recognized the right of individuals and companies to 'own' various lifeforms because they were the product of a process invented by Man and/or they contained artificial genes and chromosomes that were created by Man.

So far, these patents have only applied to lower animals, plants and microbes, however, we are here today because we are on the verge of applying these processes to human beings, the products of which will be called property of patent owners.

We intend to prove that this is, in fact, slavery under a different guise. We intend to show that the genome of lifeforms can not be owned by any one entity, no matter what the circumstances are that created the lifeform. By granting even a small foothold into the realm of owning Life in any form, we open a Pandora's Box that can and will ultimately lead to mass slavery on a scale never before seen in human history - a concept that violates the very heart of human development over the past 300 years since the Enlightenment.

The defense will argue that their lifeforms will not be used as slave labor or that their processes will be so limited in scope that they will never lead to the creation of entire classes of sub-humans, but history teaches us differently.

Slavery has been endemic to humanity since records began. Whether involuntary or indentured, slavery has existed for as long as humans have had civilization - until recently. Beginning in the 1600s, and on up to today, we have sought to end slavery. The highest ideals and sensibilities of modern society is that slavery is unacceptable in any form and for any reason.

The defense will argue that beings containing genetic property will only be charged a small royalty fee throughout their life. In effect, they will argue, this fee is no different than government taxes on people, who by virtue of being born in a certain location, must legally pay a fee called tax for the rest of their lives.

Here we will step into a very sticky area, because they are right. Taxes are legal, patents are legal, so why shouldn't life-long royalty fees charged to humans with patented genetic modifications be legal? In fact, ladies and gentlemen, you decision in this case will change how we look at taxes, property and life. The verdict you render will have far-reaching implications that touch at the heart of our modern life - how governments operate, who can own what things, and is slavery acceptable in any instance?

We will argue that children contain the unique genetic imprint of their parents, Thus, they are the direct and repeatable product of the union of two people that could not have arisen in any other way. Yet, we do not view children as the property of the parents, nor do they own fealty to their parents for any other reason than voluntary loyalty. There are no legal precedents allowing parents to claim ownership, nor are they allowed to demand royalties from their children. Why should corporations be granted this priviledge?

Even more worrisome is the notion that an individual may become inadvertent property by virtue of having ingested a patented gene or chromosome. If we take as axiomatic that we are what we eat, then it stands to reason that by eating GMO foods and incorporating private property into our beings, we become property of a corporation until such time as that property is purged from our bodies. As beneficiaries of private property, we therefore would be required to pay royalties to the patent owners under current law.

As you can see, this case has far-ranging implications into nearly every aspect of our existance, and the decision you render here will affect generations of humans to come. The possiblity exists that finding in the favor of the Plaintiffs will in fact lead to all of humanity one day becoming nothing more than products and property of corporations.

The only way to stop this is to remove the profit incentive. By taking away the right of property and the right to benefit financially from intellectual property, these corporations will cease their efforts to engineer slave races.

We claim that all humans are created equal, by whatever process, and endowed by God with rights that can not be taken away, among these being liberty and self-determination. We stand on the threshold of two very different futures. Either we chose the road of freedom, or we choose slavery. There is no middle ground. A foot in the door towards slavery will be thrown wide open at some point, sooner or later. We are tasked here with closing that door forever or risk losing our humanity - possibly forever.

Our decision here is that important.

The trial will be long and involved. It will require surveys of history, science and metaphysics. It will demand profound reflection on our parts into the nature of what it is to be alive and to be human. We will be wrestling with questions that have perplexed philosophers for centuries.

It is absolutely vital that your decision come down on the side of humans and liberty. We owe no less to our children and their children. While profit and the advancement of science are noble and necessary, we can not sacrifice our future to them.

We ask your undivided attention. We ask your deep reflection. And we ask that you render a verdict that will ensure the greatest benefit to the largest number of humans. Remember, there is no grey area, there is only black and white. Either life itself can be owned, or it can not. Any other decision will allow future challenges of this kind, if we are ever able to bring the matter to argument again. Do not squander this opportunity.

24.9.13

Sometimes I wish time would stop, or at least slow down just a bit. Seems any more, I get a deadline that's months in the future, and when I wake up the next day, it's here.

Hell, just 10 short months ago, the world came to an end. At least that's what all the folks who made a killing selling us yet another apocollapse kept saying. Of course, to milk every last gullible bonehead of their savings, those folks are busy recalculating the Mayan calendar to find where they went wrong. The apocollapse may yet be in our future...again.

Meantime, the folks who brought you the NSA and its attendant police state are doing everything they can to make St. John's Revelation come true...or at least their interpretation of it, which they've spent centuries selling to us non-thinkers. But at least we can toss St. Malachy's list of popes, since the new one isn't Peter of Rome and instead of leading the flock to safety in times of trouble, he's leading them right into global western empire. WWJD?

So here we sit, trying to make sense of all the non sequiturs that pass for headlines there days. For instance, the US will institute 'Obamacare' next week, and folks are just getting around to figuring out that Congress excepted itself and the average family will pay more for healthcare and get less for it. And you expected anything less from a government program?

See, here's the thing. People have been horn-swaggled into looking to government to solve social issues, not realizing that governments have their own agendas that don't necessarily match up with the public good. Sure, it feels good to have welfare programs and social services and aid to families and universal healthcare, but the reality is that it inevitably bankrupts the nation and the programs do little to nothing to address the problems for which they were set up.

Take welfare, for instance. Makes the heart feel good that society can assist those in need. In the old days, there were private charities and religious institutions that performed that function and did it fairly efficiently. In steps government and soon taxes go up, there are systemic abuses and entire generations of people become wholly dependent on government (read your taxes) largess. The system is rife with waste and handouts to people who really don't need them, but it serves one important purpose: it creates an entire voting bloc that will vote for anyone who guarantees the gravy train won't stop.

How about Child Protective Services (CPS)? Now here's a real gem of government slime. While it feels good to think that there is an agency set up to help families, specifically children in need, the reality is far from perfect. Instead of performing a valuable service, CPS has instead become a vehicle to drive a government wedge into family life. And that's on the good side. Furthermore, it is a make-work factory for useless social workers and other busy-bodies who have studied 'child development' without the benefit of actually having kids. Finally, at its worst, CPS is a kidnapping ring to steal babies from people under the flimsiest of excuses to adopt out to homosexuals who obviously aren't going to get them any other way.

Show me a government agency that functions the way it was intended and I'll show you how 2+2=5. They all serve only government interests while advertising themselves as do-gooders to assuage the guilt of society at large who feel like they should be doing something to help the less fortunate.

In the end, all these agencies do is drive up taxes, support a bunch of folks with degrees and training that wouldn't earn them a rusty dime in the real world of productive labor and give government a dozen different routes into the private lives and affairs of the citizenry.

The result you get from all this happy non-sense is just what you see in the US and EU: cratering economies, surveillance, a plethora of police of all kinds, and half of the populace not working while the other half is grossly underemployed and overworked to pay for it all. The productive folks see half or more of their paychecks vanish in taxes and fees to support the legions of useless eaters called government employees. The government must set up surveillance to ostensibly check for cheaters, but ultimately to ensure the productive half of society doesn't start buying a lot of rope and looking for lamp posts.

There was a time when families watched out for their own. By installing government agencies in the middle, families are being destroyed at an alarming rate because individuals no longer feel responsible for their kin. Instead, they figure they are paying through the nose for some bureaucrat to do the job for them. At the same time, government finds dozens of little holes to insinuate itself into every aspect of our lives - from how much flush your toilet has to what kind of light bulb you can buy. All so some group of bleeding hearts somewhere can say they have achieved a victory over (fill in the blank...poverty, ecology, et cetera ad nauseum).

Government has three legitimate functions: prosecute criminal activity (with a victim other than one's self), operate customs and border controls, and mount a defense in the case of invasion. That's it. Everything else is a gross violation of individual liberty just begging to happen, not to mention heinous crimes against the dignity of humans everywhere.

Next time you hear someone say, "There oughtta be a law," slap them out of their trance. If that doesn't work, march them to a government mental health facility. That'll cure them right fast.

The measure of a great society is not how much you can steal from the productive part of society at the point of a gun to support the useless part. Rather, a great society is measured by how much government stays the hell out of people's lives and lets them get on with it. Government do-goodie agencies perpetuate misery. There has never been one that did anything good over the long term. All power will be abused. You can depend on that. Thus, it's better to keep power away from governments at all costs. They are dangerous and destructive.

After all, Hitler lived up to his campaign promises. And he was an animal-loving vegetarian painter, too. Now-a-days, he'd have a government job as a nutritionist while pulling down grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

20.9.13

I have been convinced for years that governments - all of them everywhere - are nothing but a collection of blithering idiots.

Take as an example O'Bammie's recent statement that raising the debt ceiling does not increase the debt. Sure, old boy. Just like giving a pyromaniac a can of gasoline and a box of matches does not start a fire, but it sure helps.

Need more examples? Indonesia's had a good run of them lately. For instance, the national government handed the governor of DKI Jakarta an ultimatum to do something about the chronic congestion on the roads. Then it goes and offers incentives, like reduced taxes and much lower prices, to encourage folks to buy 'green' cars. That means that a lot of folks who currently use motorcycles will be more likely to buy a car, thus increasing the already unsupportable number of cars on the roads. Yup, there's a fine bit of thinking for you.

How about this one? The government here has severely cut back on fuel subsidies, meaning gas prices nearly doubled. At the same time, the government increased the minimum wage and certain taxes. Then, they all were gobsmacked when double-digit inflation showed up. What a bunch of maroons.

Just like in the US, when the supreme queen of idiots, Dianne Feinstein, starts hopping up and down about gun control, the sales of guns skyrocket.

And let's not forget the repeal of the Glass-Stegel Act. Yup, take the shackles off the bunch of bastards that brought the world the Great Depression and what do you get? The Greater Depression. Duh.

It is apparent that in order to get a government job, you must have an IQ somewhere in the range of Arctic winter temperatures. Like we 'uns says down in Texas, "When the Legislature is in session, even the sheep ain't safe." Of course, Mark Twain said it most succinctly, "Suppose you were and idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."

Governments excel at one thing...making rules about what happened yesterday. When it comes to today, much less tomorrow, they haven't got a bloody clue.

So why do people submit to organizations that are not only clueless and downright silly, but in many cases, detrimental to the well-being of those under them? There is only one simple answer: religion.

Yep, we've been indoctrinated since birth to offer blind obedience to 'authority', whether that is government or religion, or both in most cases. When you think about it, they all involve some sort of central document (holy book or constitution), which is interpreted by a select few (high courts) and implemented by legions of true believers (elected officials and bureaucrats). In fact, there seems to have been a massive effort beginning around 300 years ago to get rid of royalty and install constitutional governments. Why?

Because a king/queen is a single person who has absolute authority to make and interpret laws. There's no room in that system for such things as banksters and lawyers. All power is vested in a bloodline and can't be controlled - at least not easily.

However, if you can wrest control away from a dynasty and put it in the hands of a document, then a) you can control who gets elected, and b) how those elected bumbleheads interpret the document. That kind of system is prime hunting grounds for those with a lot of money wanting to buy and exert influence over the masses.

In other words, the whole Western religious and political paradigm is designed to give a tremendous amount of power to a very few people through the use of 'sacred' documents and an elite who are empowered to interpret those documents. Nifty little trick, if you can pull it off. And not only that, by controlling both religious and secular power, you can so indoctrinate the masses that they would be completely unable to think of any other way of doing things. Besides, even if they tried to question the system, they could be branded as heretics and ostracized at the very minimum, or burned at the stake in many cases.

All the levers of control are vested in two documents: a holy book and a constitution. The right and ability to interpret those documents rests in the hands of a select few, who can not be challenged unless you want to be branded a heretic. And the elite and interpret and enforce the rules as they see fit, mutating over time to fit any need or situation, while never giving up control.

What a great system! If you're the elite, that is.

There's one chink in the armor, though. In order to maintain their system unchallenged, the elite have embarked on a centuries-long campaign to dumb the masses down to the point where they are incapable of formulating an argument. And that's their problem.

If you look around at countries like the US, the up and coming generation is so stupid, so clueless, so doped that they can't even run the apparati of society. Their knowledge of computers is limited to vacuous chats on social media. Their ability to do things like repair a car, much less build a house, is gone. They are without clue, without history, without critical thought. The elite have achieved their dream of perfect sheep. And that will be their downfall.

Countries where the culture still pushes science, math and discipline will inherit the Earth, since the nations of stupidity will hardly be able to mount a challenge. The elite have shot themselves in the foot. They wanted unquestioning zombie followers, not thinking that those followers should be at least smart enough to maintain the machinery, much less innovate.

No wonder the US is practically eradicating its immigration controls. It desperately needs someone with intelligence to step in and take over. They have created a society incapable of doing anything but accepting hand-outs, and those can only be supported by some amount of society actually producing something.

Oops.

Shows you what inbreeding gets you.

So next time you wander into the church/mosque/synagogue, think about the system of control behind the religious veil, and more importantly, how that system is rubber-stamped across all aspects of society. No, the problem is not belief in God. The problem is belief in a book instead of God. Once you can shift authority away from an all-powerful being to a book, then you empower an elite to tell you what that book means.

19.9.13

At long last...back in the driver's seat. I moved to Indonesia as a kind of semi-retirement to spend time travelling around Asia - a life-long dream. Instead, I seem to get involved in all these projects and doing things like amassing small fortunes in property so that I don't get time for the original goal. But then, I figure Ankor Wat and the Great Wall have been there for a long time, so they'll wait for me to get a little time off and some spare cash (at the same time).

Meantime, one of those side projects has been Radio Far Side, and the latest interview with Paul Craig Roberts has sparked a lot of interest. It's been ccross-linked on several discussion boards and the information is getting a lot of folks talking, which was the whole point. If you haven't had a chance to listen to it, I highly recommend clicking on on the archive or checking out the YouTube channel (links in the right-hand column).

So, a lot has happened. Has anyone else noticed that when the PTB don't get their way, they do a sacrifice to the Dark Side to kick things into gear. I refer, of course, to the latest mass killing in the States. I've only looked at the headlines and have avoided reading the magical incantations that most of us call stories because I prefer to keep my view on the Big Picture. Given past events, we can certainly assume that the 'official' story is comeplete rubbish and there are plenty of folks analyzing it.

Instead, I just look at the relationship of events. A mass killing and the stock market runs to new highs, despite dire warnings from Bernanke et al. O'Bammie announces that he is waiving the law forbidding arming terrorists, and in the same breath talks about new gun control laws at home, and no one seems to notice the complete disconnect between reality and happy talk. The magic must be working.

Not to make light of the lost of life, of course. Every man's death diminishes me. But I reckon a little sarcasm injected into this so-called debate helps to mitigate the spell caused by such events.

I also noted a story up on Drudge about another footballer called Amukamara, who plays for the NY Giants. Says he's the black Tebow, which might make sense to someone who follows American football. I dont' have a clue, except to say that this Tebow feller is built up as some kind of super Christian, and the new guy is said to be a devote Catholic, virgin and tea-totaller (doesn't drink alcohol - except presumably when taking communion under both species).

As I pondered a little while back concerning the Miley Cyrus character, these two footballers smell like one of those set-ups to get people to buy into the hero-worship thing. These guys are built up into good christian boys whose success is predicated on their faith. Later, they will be taken down through some kind of moral flaw, which will cause deep despair among those who idolize them. More of that Ole Black Majik stuff.

Best to idolize someone like Fatty Arbuckle, since he's dead and we already know about his scandals with underage girls and Coke bottles. I figure it's hard to be disappointed that way.

And life goes on. Hi-ho, as Vonnegut might say.

About now, we should all be waiting for the other shoe to drop in Syria. The PTB didn't get their war the first time (or was it the seventh of eighth time?), so the likelihood of more 'terrorist' events occuring just skyrocketed. If I were a betting man, I'd lay odds on it. Either way, with O'Bammie waiving laws willy-nilly and arming known terrorists, the American people still have blood on their hands. After all, it is the tax money stolen from productive folks (a dwindling club in the US) that is funding the ongoing slaughter there and elsewhere.

Perhaps we should hope that one day, the American masses will wake up and realize that if everyone stopped paying taxes, it would be hard to throw the entire country in jail, though to be realistic, they are trying to do just that. But why fund your own demise, I always say.

Of course, I never cease to be amazed that anyone in the States still votes, since the counts are rigged and no matter who gets in, they immediately forget about the folks back home and start kow-towing to the corporate money spigots. If no one voted, none of the 'representatives' could claim legitimacy, yet they'd still try to pass and enforce laws, which would clearly show the deprivation of the system. Too much to ask, I suppose.

Hell, Hillary's still on the loose, when she should have been tried and convicted of treason for Bengazi. No need to list the crimes of the Bush Clan or any of the other criminals running that country into the dirt.

It really is amazing what people will put up with in order to maintain the illusion that life is comfortable. No one wants to upset the fruit cart as long as they think they are getting something valuable. No one seems to notice that, among many other things, families can no longer amass wealth and pass it on to future generations, allowing people to slowly improve their lot in life. In fact, the family itself has been destroyed so that there is no social cohesion amongst blood-relatives.

It's a sad sick world we live in and folks appear to have gotten so used the smell of gangrene that no one notices the rot and decay on the body politic.

Hi-ho!

I wish Vonnegut was still around. Maybe he could make sense of all this. But then, he did warn us many times.

15.9.13

Changing alliances, parallel financial systems, the emerging BRICS nations, Vladimir Putin leader of the free world, the collapse of the Anglo-American empire. All this and much, much more on this installment of Radio Far Side.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts has been Asst. Secretary of the US Treasury, editor for Business Week and the Wall Street Journal, a syndicated columnist, and member of the Cato Institute. He has written numerous books on economics and politics and has a worldwide audience for his regular online columns.

Dr. Robers joins Radio Far Side to discuss the sobering but fascinating trends in global events. From the fall of the dollar to the rise of Russia and China, we explore the Mid-East wars, Germany's next moves, the use of NATO to start a new Cold War, and the deep claws of the Military-Industrial Complex. Where does Indonesia stand in all this? What are the likely outcomes of current events over the next few months, and what of the American people caught between opposing allegiances?

Join us for an hour with one of the most respected commentators on economic issues.
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Stay tuned to Radio Far Side for more great interviews coming in the near future!

9.9.13

UPDATE: Mother Agnes Mariam al-Salib and the Monastery of Mar Yakub (St James) Syria are trying to get the truth out about events in Syria. Look them up on Facebook and support their efforts. Thanks!UPDATE2: First, a disease that only affects Semitic people called MERS. Then, the Saudis agree to back US invasion of Syria, and *POOF* - cure for MERS. Coincidence?=========================
On the back of the US dollar bill, there is a Latin phrase, "Ordo ab Chao," widely considered to be a motto of the Council of Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Freemasonry, meaning 'order out of chaos.'

The Chinese have similar expressions, even down to the language itself, where the word for 'crisis' (weiji or 危機) is composed of wei or 'perilous', and ji, which can imply 'flexibility', 'an integral part', 'pragmatic', and 'natural' (no, it doesn't mean 'opportunity' in itself).

For those who are mentally and physically prepared, chaos and crisis can be beneficial. The secret is to remain aloof enough from the immediate situation to be able to seize opportunities when they come.

The problem most people face is that they panic when things start to go awry. Being caught up in the turbulence of chaos, they lose their grasp on rational thought and miss the chance to strike. For instance, in a panic market, people are selling wildly while the prudent investor waits for the right moment to sweep up bargains that will gain value once order is restored.

As Max Lucado reminds us, "A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." It's one of the most apt summaries of individuality I've yet found. Those who will have the greatest impact on the future are rarely those who are entangled in the popular culture. Those who are entangled will see themselves extinguished with the masses, but those who go a more lonely road will stand out in times when leadership is most direly needed.

The crowd chose Barabbas, but it was Jesus who changed the world. And here is the crux of the problem. Those who chose their own path are often ridiculed, even punished severely for their independence. It is extremely difficult for the individual to chose that sort of abuse in order to take advantage of changing currents.

As the Chinese word weiji tells us, change in inherent in the system. Those who follow the current will flourish for a time, but eventually they will be caught in the eddies and sucked under. Those who choose the harder path will suffer up front, but they will benefit in the longer term.

It is difficult for people to embrace chaos. They desperately crave routine and sameness. They default to a world with no surprises, but this defies reality. The unexpected always comes, and we are either ready or not.

Being ready does not mean you foresee every possible hazard, Rather, it means that you have prepared yourself to accept it when it arrives. Thus prepared, you cannot be stunned into inaction and will see the opportunities in the otherwise chaotic mess. These are the people who change the world and whom the crowd ultimately follows.

No one admires a victim. They may pity the person, even come to their aid, but they will not follow a victim because the outcome is obvious.

Instead, people naturally follow those who walk away from the train wreck seemingly unscathed. Regardless of why they are unharmed, the crowd is naturally attracted to those who are apparently prepared to survive and prosper the worst catastrophes.

While it seems trite, there is a great wisdom to the expression, "Expect the unexpected." We will rarely see exactly how things will change, but that we are ready for the change itself means that we are not caught off guard, and thus are ready to act when the crowd is stunned to silence.

True leaders do not set out to lead. Rather, they are created by their ability to remain standing when all others are laid out.

Many people know the expression, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Few, however, stop to consider why the one-eyed man is that way. It is because he had the presence of mind to cover one eye when events conspired to rob the rest of their sight. His readiness led to action that gave him a slight advantage over the rest.

Ordo ab chao. Extropy out of entropy. Spring follows winter. The ant and the grasshopper. Weiji.

No matter how you express the concept, it pays to keep an open mind, to expect the unexpected. No, it won't make you popular, nor likely rich, but it will ensure a far better outcome from the inevitable chaos of life than for most.

You cannot lead when you are part of the crowd. In a crowd, you are just one of many all clambering for the same position. A leader is, by definition, different and apart and creates a position, he doesn't inhabit an existing one.

Preparedness is not about stock-piling groceries, it's about being mentally and spiritually ready for the fact that nothing stays the same. If your plan is to build yourself a fortress against the chaos, then you can be absolutely assured that you will be forced to abandon it when the unexpected comes.

As any rafter will tell you, you read the currents as you come to them. All the planning means nothing in the face of a 10-foot standing wave.

7.9.13

You can tell the really good music by the way it stays relevant across time. More on that shortly.

Interesting bit of information: according to multiple sources, including Wikipedia, one of the primary ingredients of sarin is sodium fluoride, which if you live in countries where they routinely poison the population with fluoridated water, then you drink this crud daily.

It certainly helps to illuminate why the Touch Someone's Ass (TSA) brigade are so antsy about letting folks on planes with water. Certainly, mixing up explosives in the head makes little or no sense, but apparently, mixing up a batch of sarin would require very little effort with a little American tap water.

Which leads us to a little Far Side speculation on this fair Saturday morning.

Does it appear to you, as it does to us, that the antics of the Hidden Hand are becoming less effective? If you squint just the right way, it seems they are losing their grip on the mass psyche. The Boston Marathon bombing didn't seem to have the desired effect. And now, the Syria sarin doesn't seem to be working as well as they had hoped.

It took a couple of weeks, but in the aftermath of the Boston bombing, folks kind of came out of a stupor and said, "Wait a minute! Two and two aren't adding up here."

In the wake of the Syria sarin attack, it was almost immediate. Folks just didn't buy it. The BBC ran a photo of alleged victims and immediately someone saw that it was actually a photo of US victims in Iraq a decade before. The Hidden Hand claimed it was the rebels and folks said, "Hey, aren't those rebels al Qaeda and didn't we just spend a decade and thousands of our youth fighting those bastards?" Doctors Without Borders, who treated the victims, questioned the whole sarin thing. And even Rush Limbaught, for gods' sakes, questioned the Party Line.

It would seem that a very healthy amount of skepticism is creeping into the public mind. So much so, that Bammy had to tuck tail and run to Congress for permission - something that would have been inconceivable just a couple of years ago.

To his credit, Bammy does seem to be a little trigger-shy, but we can dismiss his Nobel-laureate peace-making and put it down to political expediency. He probably sees the same thing we are.

It's taken the better part of two decades for people to wake up from the 9/11 spell we've been under, but it does seem that we are shaking it off and starting to realize what happened to us. And none too soon.

For those of us who are duck-and-cover alumni, it seems completely incongruous that we should be cheering the Russian president, but there it is. Putin, to his great credit, it not allowing the West to get away with its usual tricks, and the world is siding with him. China, not surprisingly, sided with him, and that put a lot of financial pressure on the US. Seems the Chinese hold a lot of US paper, and if the US doesn't behave itself, the Chinese can crash what's left of the US economy overnight. That's a big brake on US belligerence.

The mass awakening may not (yet) be enough to actually change things, but it is quickly becoming enough to temper the head-long rush to war we've witnessed over the past 20 years. We've gone from Bush II running around in trench-coat flashing world leaders with his "evidence" behind closed doors to the world sitting back and saying it's not enough for a few "leaders" to see - we all want to get a look at the "flash".

And no, we won't be fooled again (thanks Pete T.).

So where to from here?

Two possible outcomes are likely at this point. The good one is that the Hidden Hand will see its power wane and slowly fade to insignificance. The bad one is that something bigger than 9/11 is in the offing to put us further under the spell of fear.

It could be that the tide has turned. As any practitioner of magic knows, once the audience sees through one of your tricks, it is nearly impossible to get it to suspend disbelief again. The spell must be maintained in order to keep the rubes believing in your powers. Once you lose that, then the audience is looking much harder for the 'trick', and they are far less willing to believe you have special abilities and moral superiority (magic requires an audience to grant moral superiority to a magician).

We may be at that point now with the Hidden Hand. If the world continues to wake up to the illusion they have foisted on us for the past two decades, then eventually they will be required to slink back into the shadows of has-been status and the world will be a better place.

On the other hand, if a magician starts to lose his audience, then he must trot out a trick of such magnitude and power as to completely entrance the masses once again. And here lies the danger. The Hidden Hand is not likely to surrender its status of world ruler easily. Now that the curtain is slipping, it is in a position of having to wave the magic wand and create an illusion of such magnitude that we will all be entranced once again.

It took a 'trick' the size and scope of 9/11 to put us all under their spell in the first place, so it will take a 'trick' that is orders of magnitude grander to put us all under once again. In other words, we won't go down for a couple of skyscrapers again. This time, it will take an entire city. That will require a nuke (at least one), and it will require a boogieman that can credibly pull it off.

Lo and Behold! We have just such a boogieman. Iran. The Hidden Hand has spent 40 years building up Iran as its Ace-in-the-Hole. Ever since the Iran hostage crisis (I was 40 miles from the border with Iran when that happened), that country has been carefully built up to be exactly the kind of thing they would need to pull of a major 'trick' of the kind needed just now. The Muslim world has been carefully vilified in the Western mind. Iran's so-called nuke program has been carefully positioned as a threat. And Iran has been painted as a threat to Israel, which the Hidden Hand has implanted in the Western mind as an important emotional trigger.

So, now we need a Big Trick to put everyone under the spell. The last biggie has worn off and the magicians are losing credibility. It is time to pull out the Ace-in-the-Hole.

Likely scenario: in retaliation for Western support of the false flag attack in Syria, Iran pops off a nuke in Jerusalem. The attack on such a city has very deep psychological triggers in billions of people across the globe. Everyone will see this as fulfillment of prophesy and a direct attack against some god or another. This will immediately polarize the world into Christian and Muslim, with both sides arming themselves to the teeth. The deep emotional value of the target will prevent anyone from questioning, and if they do, they will be shouted down, even attacked for not lining up on the 'right' side of the issue. No one will question whether the attack was really perpetrated by Iran. It will be obvious, from years of implantation, that they did it. Even the pope will not be able to call for peace at a time like that.

Do you remember what you felt in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? Remember that burning need to retaliate? Remember that overwhelming patriotism? Remember how anyone who questioned the Party Line was shouted down and made to look like a fool?

Now imagine that feeling multiplied thousands of times over and spread throughout the world. No one will be unaffected. Jerusalem is a hot button for more than half the world's population. It is so deeply rooted in the identity and thinking of so many people that they can not extract it from reality. Even world religious leaders will be bound to call for blood or lose all credibility. The mental wound would be of such a proportion that it would take a century or more to heal, and that means perpetual war.

Yup, the Hidden Hand's wet dream of perpetual war would become a reality. Billions of people acting on pure fear and emotion without a single rational thought for generations. It would be 30 or 40 years before anyone could even formulate a doubt, much less express it. it would be another 50 years before enough people had doubts that it would affect the course of history. In the meantime, the Hidden Hand would have established a grip on the world that will take centuries to undo, and by that time, they would own and control pretty much everything. Unwinding the tentacles would be centuries again. Hell, just unwinding A. G. Farben took the better part of a century, and that was one company in one country. Imagine what it would take to unwind an octopus that sat in the heart of nearly every country on Earth and was every company on Earth, for all intents and purposes.

If I were a Hidden Hander, I would be preparing for this ultimate scenario. But since I am a regular kind of guy, I am instead looking for signs that just such a thing is in the offing. Certainly, all the pieces are in place for this End Game. It would eradicate any last vestiges of opposition and rational thought. It would solidify the mental and physical lock on the world that this group has been after for...well, centuries.

The only thing remaining is to set up the proper situation that would make it completely credible for Iran to nuke Jerusalem. Everyone must be looking in the right direction for the 'trick' to work. All magic tricks require absolute control over what the audience sees.

We know that the Hidden Hand has no problem sacrificing even its own in order to complete its tricks. We know that they are willing to use spectacular death counts to ensure their tricks capture the imaginations of large numbers of people. And we know that they are ruthlessly and myopically focused on world domination. So it makes perfect sense that they would be thinking along these lines, even if the details of the actual event are slightly different.

They need an emotional hot button. They need a Big Boogieman. They need shock and fear to pull it off. All the elements are here.

Here on the Far Side, we're ready for it. Wherever the magician tells us to look, we will be looking the other way. Our anthem remains:

5.9.13

We can always depend on our good and faithful reader Linda to come up with some deep ponders du jour:

"My instincts tell me that the USA is biting off more than they can chew
and it will not be pretty. Boys in the military are against it, but the
psychos will go ahead anyway, Something else I heard is that as you
know, the cities are throwingthe homeless out more and more, and
preventing them from getting food etc, I am hearing there is a squad
culling them, like who would miss them. That is how psychotic those in
power have become.YUK.Karma is coming and soon. Linda"

Let's tackle the Syria thing first. Last night, I watched an old favorite called Bob Roberts. This is one of those forgotten gems of cinema. It was written, directed and stars Tim Robbins, and features performances by Gore Vidal, among many other fine turns on the stage.

Though the film came out in the early 90s, and is obviously a liberal parable cautioning against the neo-cons, in the post Clinton and Obama years, it has become even more poignant in that one sees through both sides (liberal and conservative) of the argument.

Gore Vidal's thoughtful character is like something out of a Woody Allen piece, dropping thought-bombs every 15 minutes.

Ultimately, the film leaves the viewer with overwhelming dread of the military-industrial-security complex. Though it is going on 30 years old, it is amazing to see just how relevant it remains in its observations of the National Security Council - which has morphed into the NSA in our time.

And this leads around to Linda's comments on the impending Syrian war. I, too, feel that it is lost before it is begun, and no, I don't refer to Assad's side. But why the rush to war? George Ure suspects the Leviathan oil field, but that is too easy...too obvious. Others speculate that it is a geo-political stepping stone to Iran. Again, with the overwhelming sky superiority of NATO and Israel, there is no need to take out Syria before going full-bore against Iran.

No, this is all about fulfillig prophesy. Yes, you read that right. This is intended as the provocation that will lead nations to rise up against Israel. You see, as Joseph Farrell says, the fulfillment is the deception. When one controls the interpretation of prophesy, then one can control the fulfillment, and thus control masses of people.

Millions, if not billions, of people believe in Revelations, the final book of the Christian Bible. Even if they put little or no stock in the rest of the book, they all know about the number of the Beast, the rise of the anti-Christ and all that stuff. Since they have been taught a particular interpretation of the prophesy, and that interpretation obviously serves a group that would like to run the world, then it stands to reason that the power-mad group would want to make it appear that their interpretation of Revelations was coming to pass in order to control billions of people.

Look at it this way...if you believed that the ultimate triumph of your faith would be the destruction of the world, and you believed in a certain interpreation of a prophesy that said certain events would come to pass before the ultimate triumph, and you saw those events taking place, would you do anything to stop them? If you answer "no", then you are controled by a small group of people working to make certain events take place.

So, if nations arise to attack Israel before the rise of the anti-Christ, and the anti-Christ must come to power before the Christ will come, then would you fight against any chain of events that appear to be fulfilling the prophesy?

Even if it is only on a subconcious level, if you put any stock in the interpretation of the book of Revelations, then you are likely neutered at some level to prevent you from attempting to stop the rise of the anti-Christ and the world government and the Final Tribulations. Even worse, if you are a follower of the evangelical clap-trap, then you believe that you will be spirited away and won't have to suffer the death throes of our civilization, so you would likely work actively to cause the chain of events to occur.

Thus, if Syria appears to be a key stepping stone to the destruction of Israel and the rise of the anti-Christ, then you are not likely to seriously fight against the war, whatever your personal feelings, because it will ultimately lead to the return of Christ.

On the other hand, those who want to take over the world are carefully choreographing events to fulfill the interpretation of prophesy so the masses will put up no resistance since they believe what you are doing is necessary for the ultimate triumph of their faith. As Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

It appears to me that the Syrian war is inevitable because no one will resist it, even if the war is repugnant to them. At some level, most Westerners have had a certain interpretation of Revelations installed in their philosophical foundation, and so their actions are informed by certain beliefs in how history should unfold and will do nothing to prevent it. It's like a mental corral allowing us cattle to move only in the direction our captors desire.

Thus, the Syrian war seems destined to occur, and if not Syria, then something similar. It seems that for years now, the Hidden Hand has been stirring up certain events, waiting for the moment when events would conspire in just the right way to allow them their opportunity. Which brings us back to the opening comments on Bob Roberts. As you watch the film, keep in mind that it was produced in the early 90s. The reason is that the movie sounds as if it could be torn from today's headlines. The global situation has not changed one whit.

The Hidden Hand has been pushing a very specific agenda for at least the past 40 years. They want certain things to happen in a very specific region of the world in order to launch a very specific chain of events that serves their plans. At a certain level, nothing has changed since at least the mid-70s. Some group, the Hidden Hand, will not rest until they can provoke an all-out attack on Israel and start the dominoes falling that will put them in possession of the entire world, with nary a whimper of resistance from a significant number of people who believe these things absolutely must happen.

It's diabolically clever, really.

As for the homeless round-up. Here's another example of media being used to desensitize the masses. The round-up and use of the disenfranchised members of society has been a common theme in science fiction for some time. Specifically, I can think of certain episodes of Max Headroom and Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which the invisible members of society feed the needs of the privileged classes.

The media have been used to plant these memes in the popular culture so that when the real stories appear, people will - consciously or not - dismiss them as fiction. Thus, people will simply ignore any stories concerning the round-up of homeless as either complete fiction, or that someone else (the star) will solve the problem and there is no need to act on it. It's a very subtle and devious effect of mass media that few stop to consider.

It's common for tyrannical regimes to start their internal clamp-downs on the invisible and undesireable. The Nazis began with street people, gypsies and other groups that society viewed as useless. This is a valuable training ground for the minions in that it desensitizes them to suffering and pain. Thus, when they are loosed on more mainstream parts of society, their normal revulsion against such things will already be subverted. They will come to see any member of society that is targeted for them as useless and undesirable.

It's basically the same programming that has been going on in America's police forces for years. First, they are taught to treat the drug pushers and other undesirables with contempt, and to view them as enemies of war. Eventually, that mind-set is turned on all citizens, so that even the soccer mom in the mini-van pulled over a tail lamp is a potential threat and must be treated with suspicion and force. The us-versus-them mentality is very important when turning one part of society against another. It's much easier with a foreign enemy that is easily objectified, but takes some training when its a neighbor.

Once again, our good friend Linda has caused us to think. We try to avoid such things around here, preferring vacuous ramblings to wrestling social and philosophical issues.

To this screed, we would add that it's important to stand back far enough from current events in order to see the larger picture. There are themes and memes that run through decades, even centuries, that can be used to control a lot of people. Even more sinister is the planting of such things in order to gain control. That's why it is one of our pet themes around here to turn off the media, and/or spend a lot of time learning how it works so that we are not suseptible to its effects.

The other important theme is questioning all our basic assupmtions and beliefs, with no sacred cows. We are at an important nexus in history and we can not afford knee-jerk reactions based on beliefs that were implanted in us from birth.

We must queston loyalty to religion and government. We must challenge our most fundamental constructs. Just like bacteria, viruses and chemicals, it can all be weaponized and used against us. We must examine the foundation and construction of all our basic assumptions of life. Also, be especially on guard against being manipulated by symbols - another topic we have explored at length around here.

These are dangerous times to operate on auto-pilot. The storm is coming and we must take manual control of every function of the ship. It's not easy, but anything worthwhile rarely is.

If you are the praying type, then now is a good time to pray that the men and women of the US military find the courage to not fight. There comes a time when it is imperative to refuse illegal and immoral orders, and this is one of them.

4.9.13

UPDATE: As yet another example of silly things to worry about, given the much more serious economic problems, a bunch of religious fundamentalists with too much time on the their hands have decided to protest the Miss World contest, for which the contestants are already arriving. That's right...it's been planned for at least two years, involves multiple venues over two weeks, and these yutzes are just getting around to protesting the fact that the contestants won't be wearing bikinis. Yes, you read that right. If you look at the article, you can tell by the picture that the protesters know they're a bunch of yutzes, because they covered their faces so their friends wouldn't laugh at them. Sheesh! What's worse are the complete and utter nincompoops in government that are holding hearings over an event that has already been approved and licenses for at least a year and now the crowds are showing up. At the very best, this circus is to elicit bribes from the producers to ensure things go on as planned. If I were the KPK, I'd be watching the bank accounts of every government blow-hard involved in the debate.

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Sudden impacts with reality are seldom pleasant. If usually involves folks who have been living in a dream world rapidly coming to grips with the murky fantasy they've been living in.

Source: TradingEconomics.com

Such appears to the be case in Indonesia as we speak. The country has been on a boom unlike anything in its history. Though the late 80s and early 90s were high times, the economic benefit was not as widely spread across socio-economic levels as it is today.

The current boom has been fueled in part by the massive Chinese expansion and great gobs of foreign investment money created by the Western bailouts in 2008. The fire was further fueled by low interest rates and prices domestically. But the music shows all the signs of stopping and the musicians are looking a bit tired and ready to take a smoke break.

Among the many reasons I chose to move to Indonesia was the speculation that this country, and the whole region, were about to boom, and I wanted some. I haven't been disappointed. And I'm not alone. Western companies, languishing in sloggy economies back home, have been buzzing around Indonesia for nearly a decade now, pouncing on any vague opportunity that came along. And therein lies the problem.

The combination of loose money and Indonesia's long cultural tradition of corruption combined to make a lot of folks rich, but as money supplies have tightened up and speculators have become quite a bit more skittery, the mire of Indonesian business practices have chased a lot of the easy money away.

Here's an example: in an effort to encourage growth in various regions of the country, the central government gave the provinces a lot of autonomy in allocating mining concessions. As a consequence, there was a great deal of confusion (must intentional) over who would issue and benefit from licenses. Every village, county and provincial government got in on the act, with dozens of overlapping claims on any given concession. As a consequence, lawsuits started flying and many foreign interests, having gotten burned since the courts invariably decide in favor of local folks, have been leaving the country in droves.

Source: TradingEconomics.com

This hase the double whammy of draining foreign cash out of the system, and shutting down hospital, school and other social projects that are typically part of deals made with outside operators. The flight of foreign currency in turn has caused a crisis of confidence in Indonesian bonds sending rates steeply up and making it expensive for the central government to maintain the debt, which in turn sucks more money out of the economy.

Combine the above with the recent end to the subsidized fuel system, which has been in place since the days when Indonesia was a member of OPEC and a net exporter of oil and gas. A combination of drying up old fields, insane one-sided policy and endemic corruption have all but shut down new development and production, leaving Indonesia a net importer or oil now.

Ceasing the fuel subsidy only two months ago has sent the price of everything through the roof. From cab fares to food prices, everything has suddenly become much more expensive, with double-digit inflation on the horizon. The only immediate action the central bank can take is to raise rates, which it has done, and which is further slamming the brakes on the economy.

While it's not entirely undesirable to cool off the economy, which has been growing at 6%+ for the past five years, having it happen all at once could send the whole country into a tail-spin. All the loose money slopping around has caused a number of bubbles in things like housing and designer clothes and other useless stuff. Folks, flush with easy money, have been turning into lite Americans, buying electronics and gee-gaws like they are going out of style, rather than saving and deploying money wisely.

The wildly expanding middle class here is now populated with folks who have four cars, two tablet computers, a half-dozen cell phones, 37 pairs of shoes, and three armoirs full of clothes they never wear. Furthermore, everyone's become a real estate magnate, buying and flipping houses and apartments as a hobby at the breakfast table.

And that brings us to the crux of the problem: consumerism.

Consumerism is a pointless and empty pursuit. A company puts out a product, saturates the market, prices run up wildly and then crash, and then some new product comes along. Do this enough times with enough products and eventually the entire economy collapses - from sheer exhaustion if nothing else. Everyone has bought all the crap they can store and prices have run up as high as anyone will pay. All the new iCrap and BoobBerries can't pry open pockets. Crash and burn.

Emerging economy appears to be just a polite way of saying a new group of suckers. As fast as the corporate masters can heat up an economy, they launch the same old tired game: dangle gee-gaws and what-nots in front a people and get them to chase the carrot round and round until everyone just collapses. By then, the greedy bastards have moved on to the next playground.

Every time, people are led in orgies of consumption until the Board Members pull their money off the table - right at the peak or greed and corruption. Areas where the puppet-masters are just starting their work are called 'emerging economies'. Areas that have been led round the consumption barn repeatedly are called 'mature or developed economies'.

They come into an economy where people buy a home for life, and mom can stay home with the kids, and life is simple and affordable. When they are finished, everything is polluted, families are tapped out and both parents have to work just to pay the debt, as they sit amongst a pile of gee-gaws that no longer have novelty or usefulness. Neighbors have been turned against each other as they competed to out-do each other with their toys.

Maybe, just maybe, in the coming train wreck that we will call the global economy, folks will learn that pointless consumerism is an economic dead-end that only empowers and enriches the 1%. To them, we are nothing but rats in a maze, chasing imaginary cheese until we fall over from exhaustion.

Have Indonesians really received a higher standard of living? Or have they traded a quiet and idyllic life for clogged cities, smog-choked skies and piles of garbage? Have all the gee-gaws and what-nots actually improved life? Or have they only made us more neurotic and selfish?

Source: TradingEconomics.com

The question remains can Indonesia turn itself around? Can government and the people control their impulse to slide the knife between the 4th and 5th vertebrae to get an inch further than the next guy? Can people pull themselves back from the precipice from which the West has jumped like so many lemmings? Is it really necessary to buy just one more iFad or car or what-not? Can we resist the urge to shackle ourselves with debt for the appearance of wealth and success?

It was just 15 short years ago that Indonesia fell into a dark moment of history, with riots, destruction and killing in the name of having more stuff. It's important to remember that kind of behavior provides entertainment for the Money Masters who play us like so many rag dolls.

Is it too much to ask for a little restraint before we all leap into the Abyss?

2.9.13

There are several items on the agenda today. The first has to do with the discovery of yet another species in Indonesia. Seems these kinds of articles come around ever six months. This is due in part to the fact that Indonesia still has a frontier. There are thousands of islands that comprise the country, many of which are uninhabited and unexplored - at least thoroughly.

This discovery involves a new kind of 'walking' shark. Seems there are nine species of such, with six here in Indonesia. There are an amazing number of critters here, such as butterflies that range from the size of a thumbnail to a dinner plate, hornets the size of hummingbirds, and millipedes the length of your hand from heel to fingertip. It's a fascinating place and one you won't soon be bored with.

The next topic always generates angry email. I'm a big fan of Texas independence. I've worked for it for many years. Most people think that Texas independence is one of those topics out in the loony realm, or at best a pipe-dream of complete nincompoops.

However, it seems that even mainstream Texans are ready for it. In fact, the Texas governing bodies themselves have been planning for the eventuality, especially if/when the US economy goes tits up, which is likely soon. Apparently, even big corporations are quietly moving their headquarters to Texas, not only for the tax benefits, but because Texas is one of the largest economies on Earth and could easily be self-sufficient.

For the the two or three folks who don't know, Texas has been a sovereign nation twice - from 1836 to 1845, and again from 1860 to 1865. Both times, Texas was squatted on by the US feral gummint, which has a long history of doing such things that extends to the present day.

In many ways, Texas still is independent. The floor of the capitol bears the seal of the Republic of Texas, not the state. The Texas flag flies along side of the US', not below it. Texas maintains energy independence from the US. And the US feral gummint is not allowed to own land in Texas, just rent.

Though in the past, many Texans have been used as cannon fodder for US military adventurism and has produced one US president (LBJ - the Bushes are a bunch of Connecticut yankee carpet-baggers), there is a growing sentiment that the US is out of control and folks don't like it. Twenty years ago, a lot of folks thought I was crazy for talking about independence - if they were polite - but now it's becoming a real issue, as feral gummint agents get out of hand and the US increasingly turns on itself. The process started during the Clinton presidency, but it has positively soared during the reigh of Barak the Boneheaded. With the US economy imploding, there may soon be a new nation among nations, and I, for one, can't wait.

I'm referring to the idea that the Nazis not only did not lose the war, but that they effectively took over the West through agencies like the CIA and NATO. The editorial goes on to make the point that even Israel is complicit in the Nazi victory.

Few people - especially Americans - realize that the eugenics movement began in earnest in the US years before the Nazis came to power. Courts ordered forced sterilization based on family history or mixed-race breeding. There were impassioned appeals to clean up (and whiten) the gene pool. Certainly, the century-long campaign by the US feral gummint to erase the aboriginals was far more deadly than the Final Solution, and just as genocidal.

Fascism also has a long history in the US. Over the past century, the various levels of US government have become increasingly subservient to corporate interests. It is plainly visible to most folks that corporations are more equal than individuals. Even the US public school system is based entirely on the Prussian model, whose function was to crank out soldiers, not thinkers. Is it any wonder that the US today can only solve its prolems at the point of a gun?

The most damning evidence of the victory of fascism is the massive effort to save and protect top-ranking Nazis after the war. The Russians took their fair share back home, but when they were done, they returned their Nazis to Germany.

On the other hand, the US and the NATO countries employed the Nazis, protected them with new identifites, used them to create the CIA, NASA and NATO itself. South America has areas that one would swear are carved right out of the Schwartzwald and the Alps. The Nazi refugees who ran to Brazil and other nations were a thinly hidden secret. Martin Boorman was conducting business under his own name and Josef Mengele likely continued his horrific work in Peru. There's even significant evidence that Hitler himself was carefully hidden in Indonesia.

When you make a deal with the devil, there's hell to pay.

As the article clearly points out, the US wasn't alone. The British nobility, including Edward VIII, were Nazi sympathizers. Heck, most of them are of German descent, another carefully hidden secret.

The layers of this onion are only now being peeled back to reveal how deep they go. A number of top-notch researchers have uncovered vast networks, deep conspiracies and wide cover-ups. By allowing such creatures to not only go unpunished, but actually rewarded, has encouraged that historical error to propagate to the point that US foreign policy is cast in hot lead and gunpowder.

Until recently, most Americans were woefully ignorant of what their nation had become, because they only saw it from the inside out. Now that federal tyranny has come to Main Street USA and drones, soldiers and tanks are actually rolling over Ma's apple pie has the terrible truth struck home: the hunter has become the hunted.

There is only one solution: place America's leaders - past and present - on trial for crimes against humanity. Bring the truth out into the open and drain the festering wound that lies and secrecy have left on the nation's psyche. Unless justice is done, those in power will continue their horrors until it all collapses. When it does, they will likely have yet another escape plan - perhaps off planet?

The American people, and indeed the entire Western hemisphere - must wake up and take action. If not, it will become so unbearable as to resemble Orwell's boot stamping on a human face forever.

Unfortunately, most American's are so steeped in propaganda that they can't see what horrors are being done in their name. That only other option is that they are complicit.

The time is fast approaching when the world will find a weakness and attack. That time may have already come with the recent developments in and over Syria. As soon as the bully is shown to be all fluff and no puff, his victims will show no mercy in retaliating.

Texas should hurry and get out. Positive action such as that might make the rest of the world a little more lenient on the Lone Star Republic. In fact, y'all might get some credit for helping shut down the war machine that is destroying the world.